Life was designed to be lived in community.

Intro: In a few weeks we will be in the
middle of one of the greatest summer events that only come around every four
years and no I am not talking about the November elections. I am talking about
the Olympics. These athletics have been training for years, some of them since
they were old enough to walk. They are training for the possibility of representing
team USA and bringing home a Gold Medal. This year’ time trials for the women’s
1500 track event were personal for my family. My sister’s daughter Amanda my
nice won her first heat came in second in the semi-finals and in the qualifying
heat for the women’s 1500 for Rio she missed third placed by 3 hundreds of a
second, literally by a nose. At the finish line both girls who were fighting
for third place fell crossing the finish line. They both sacrificed their body for
the possibility of being on this year’s Olympic team.

Great Christians train
all their life willing to sacrifice everything, knowing this is their spiritual
act of worship. In the previous weeks we have learned great Christians pray
great prayers, think great thoughts, read great books, pursue great people and dream
great dreams, and take great risk. This week we find that Great Christians make
great sacrifices! One might say; Sacrifice is love with clothes on. Are you
dressed Christian? Sacrifice flows from our view of God. Our willingness to
sacrifice starts with the belief that God is good and He loves us.

Text: 1 John
3:15-17 (NIV)

“Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no
murderer has eternal life in him. 16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus
Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our
brothers. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in
need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?’

Sacrifice is that defining moment when the God of
the universe asks you to love Him more than the world.

Sacrifice flows from our
surrender; our willingness to sacrifice is also connected to our being
surrendered to God.

Jesus gave us the privilege to suffer for His sake. Sacrifice
is the clearest and greatest evidence of the extent of one’s love and devotion
toward a person, a cause, or a thing. “If you keep My commandments, you will
abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His
love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you,
and that your joy may be full. 12 This is My commandment, that you love one
another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay
down one's life for his friends.” John 15:10-13 (NKJV)

When we’re truly devoted
to someone or something, we’re willing to make sacrifices. If you want to know
what you really love, all you have to do is notice where you’re giving your
time, your energy, your money, and your dreams. For most people, that would
involve some combination of spouse, children, job, and hobbies. We gladly spend
ourselves on what we love. “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My
love.”

When you think about the relationship Jesus has with His father He sacrificed
His life to demonstrate His love. What should we be willing to do with our
relationship with Christ?

Love and worship are intertwined in the sacrificial
system of the Old Testament, and if we don’t grasp the nature of the
relationship between them, we miss both the significance of Jesus’s sacrifice
for us and the appropriate depth of our discipleship.

In the first 10 chapters
of Leviticus 5 offerings are recommended. Two of these offerings were required,
the sin and guilt offering. These were required at certain times, and everyone
was expected to do them. But the three voluntary offerings were expression of
faithfulness. The first was the burnt offering to express the depth of your
devotion. The second was a grain offering given in gratitude for God’s
provision. The third was a peace offering, given simply to acknowledge how good
God had been. The Old Testament made it clear, access to God demands sacrifice.

Think of the sacrifice Abraham was willing to make, his own son in obedience
for God’s righteousness. What Abraham found out because of his faith in his
Lord was: “The Lord will provide.” God periodically test every one of us for
the uniqueness of our devotion through sacrifice. Most people wouldn’t consider
a command to sacrifice their precious child-or precious anything else, for that
matter.

"If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother,
wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot
be My disciple. 27 And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me
cannot be My disciple.” Luke 14:26-27 (NKJV)

Christ is first, and if you want
to be His disciple there is no other order! Jesus made it clear that following
him, even when that contradicts everything else that’s important to us, is the
top priority. That is your spiritual act of worship. In other words, to love
and worship Jesus is to put him above every relationship and issue in our life.
It requires absolute sacrifice. “In the same way, therefore, every one of you
who does not say good-bye to all his possessions cannot be My disciple.” Luke
14:33 (HCSB)

There is a high cost to being that disciple. Paul made it clear: “I
urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living
sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship.” This
is your spiritual act, present your body. God wants us to offer ourselves. He
doesn’t just want our job, our money, or our stuff. He wants all of us-lock,
stock, and barrel. The picture is of those voluntary offerings of devotion
described in Leviticus, only in this case the offering is not a dead animal but
a grateful servant who continues to live as God’s own possession. It can’t be
given just on Sunday mornings…

It is like seeing your life as a blank check and
in view of your love for God and your confidence in His goodness you sign the
bottom of the check and you allow Him to do whatever He wants with you! That is
a spiritual act of worship. God just wants us to be willing to do whatever He
says, even when it costs us a lot.

What motivates great Christians? Jesus said
that the greatest love is to lay down one’s life for another. That’s what He
did for us, and He calls us to do the same for Him. We are to take up our cross
daily and follow Him. That’s the living sacrifice. All Christians need to
realize that we’re living in a little slice of eternity called “time.” In the
last six weeks my focus has been on the good Christian who can have the
opportunity to be great in God’s eyes. You can live an average life-or you can
choose to leave an eternal legacy.

2. Unconditional Love: “Then He turned to the
woman and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you
gave Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and
wiped them with the hair of her head. 45 You gave Me no kiss, but this woman
has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in. 46 You did not anoint
My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil. 47 Therefore
I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But
to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little." 48 Then He said
to her, "Your sins are forgiven." Luke 7:44-48 (NKJV)

Great
Christians are motivated by God and their willingness to be a living sacrifice
when they understand His unconditional love. Their sacrifice is a response to
that Love. This woman appreciated God’s Grace, she recognized her sin and God’s
unconditional love that forgave her. She shows a deep devotion and truly an act
of spiritual worship.

Not only do great Christians grasp God’s unconditional
love, but the second truth that underlines the motivation of great Christians
to offer themselves as living sacrifices is that they also embrace His
relational economy. The classic example of this in scripture is the story of
the widow who put two small coins into the temple treasury: ‘And He looked up
and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, 2 and He saw also
a certain poor widow putting in two mites. 3 So He said, "Truly I say to
you that this poor widow has put in more than all; 4 for all these out of their
abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all
the livelihood that she had." Luke 21:1-4 (NKJV)

The third truth that
motivates great Christians to make great sacrifices is that they are convinced
of God’s eternal goodness. We look for the minimum requirements of sacrifice
simply because we want to be right with God. But God isn’t looking for minimum
Christians. Great Christians understand that the goal is to die with a zero
balance. The fourth conviction of those who make great sacrifices is that they
recognize God’s sovereign ownership. They don’t consider sacrifice
praiseworthy, as though the offering is a noble act. They consider it a
privilege because it all belongs to God anyway. Great Christians understand
God’s unconditional Love their spiritual act of worship is the icing on the
cake.

Take the temperature of your heart right now. Are you growing in your
love for Jesus? Do you understand how unconditionally He loves you? Do you
operate in His relational economy? If you signed the bottom of a blank check to
Him, could you trust Him to be relentlessly good to you in return? Have you
considered that everything in your life comes from Him anyway? God’s kingdom is
about extravagant love. He made the ultimate sacrifice for us by sending Jesus
to die an excruciating death on a cross as payment for our sins. He looks for
those who will love Him extravagantly in return. A sacrifice is merely love with
clothes on!

Conclusion: Sacrifice

Back in the days of the Great Depression a
Missouri man named John Griffith was the controller of a great railroad
drawbridge across the Mississippi River. One day in the summer of 1937 he
decided to take his eight-year-old son, Greg, with him to work. At noon, John
Griffith put the bridge up to allow ships to pass and sat on the observation
deck with his son to eat lunch. Time passed quickly. Suddenly he was startled
by the shrieking of a train whistle in the distance. He quickly looked at his
watch and noticed it was 1:07—the Memphis Express, with four hundred passengers
on board, was roaring toward the raised bridge! He leaped from the observation
deck and ran back to the control tower. Just before throwing the master lever
he glanced down for any ships below. There a sight caught his eye that caused
his heart to leap poundingly into his throat. Greg had slipped from the
observation deck and had fallen into the massive gears that operate the bridge.
His left leg was caught in the cogs of the two main gears! Desperately John’s
mind whirled to devise a rescue plan. But as soon as he thought of a
possibility he knew there was no way it could be done.

Again, with alarming
closeness, the train whistle shrieked in the air. He could hear the clicking of
the locomotive wheels over the tracks. That was his son down there—yet there
were four hundred passengers on the train. John knew what he had to do, so he
buried his head in his left arm and pushed the master switch forward. That
great massive bridge lowered into place just as the Memphis Express began to
roar across the river. When John Griffith lifted his head with his face smeared
with tears, he looked into the passing windows of the train. There were
businessmen casually reading their afternoon papers, finely dressed ladies in
the dining car sipping coffee, and children pushing long spoons into their
dishes of ice cream. No one looked at the control house, and no one looked at
the great gear box. With wrenching agony, John Griffith cried out at the steel
train: “I sacrificed my son for you people! Don’t you care?” The train rushed
by, but nobody heard the father’s words, which recalled Lamentations 1:12: “Is
it nothing to you, all who pass by?”

Great Christians want to show God their
spiritual act of worship because they do care. Do you?